All 2 entries tagged Neighbours

August 09, 2005

So life is not treating you well. You have lost your way. You are miserable and ill and just can't see the point of it all. But here, my friend, there is hope. Here, you too can find a meaning in life, to bring you hope and joy and flowers and things and skippyedeee skipping through sunshine. Or something.

Yes, all this can be yours if you vow to live the Neighbours Way and follow these simple rules.

Move. It is imperative you begin your new way of life living on the same street as all your close friends, your lover(s), your colleagues, your doctor, your lawyer, your teacher, your friendly neighbourhood bobby, most of your family and in short pretty much anyone you will exchange more than three words with in any given day. If you do happen to interact with anyone from outside this group, they must be a close friend or rebellious family member of somebody else in the street.

Get a new wardrobe. Only wear bright colours that will give a crude representation of the keynote of your character, so that you can be easily identified within this idyllic world. Are you a whore? Red and low cut will do the job. Honest and earnest? Try a buttercup yellow blouse. Solid as a rock? Nice earthy greens will achieve the look you want. And if you're feeling a bit rebellious, but at the same time with a soft feminine heart buried deep inside, bright pink streaks in your hair are always a winner.

Geography transcends age. You love socialising with your mum's friends, and your cousin, and your baby sister's crew. Girly night needed? Cool, let's invite the gang - your mum, your mum's friends, your old teacher, and the ten year old from down the road. Why do you need your own friends when you can have all this? You love them all.

Amnesia is always an excuse. For anything. Even death. Except perhaps a sudden and disturbing interest in perving at women. Oh no… wait… it is.

Don't go to the Nightclub unless you are planning to go Off The Rails. There are people there who Do Not Live On The Street, and are therefore a danger to the Way. (Anyway, they'd have to be complete losers to want to dance to eighties box-beats in a near empty room, whilst the Ramsey Street Rebel Of The Week… er… rebels.)

Mourning etiquette requires two episodes of wearing black and looking mournful, followed by a bit of paid leave during which other residents will make a few sorrowful comments, and then mercifully, the matter will be dropped and life continues as normal. Warning, nobody is ever really dead until you see the body (see 4.).

Don't be a 'cake-taker.' Don't even use the word unless you think you are cool/young enough to merit it. Clue: if you find yourself trying to analyse the origins of it you're probably too old to use it. Also applies to 'hufter.'

Do, however, try and apply cheesy puns where and when possible. Hearing the familiar 'here comes the comedy storyline' music in the background is always a good sign. It means that today your trauma is not on display, and you get to merely ogle/interfere with everyone else's. However, you may end up wearing underpants on your head. I don't know why this happens with such frequency in Neighbours, but it does.

Don't go to the forest. Or the abandoned shack in the woods. It's just asking for trouble. If you really have to get away just go to America. America is a big glossy place where you can be a STAR, or have a really cool successful job in New York. You never hear about Flick's drug problem, or how Michelle failed to make rent and got asthma from the city pollution. Because when you set foot in America, as a student of the Way, you are blessed. You will find your happy ending. And nobody will think the less of you because you never visit, or call, or write, even when your parents are going through a divorce or your sister's being tried for murder. Aren't families wonderful?

You must worship Harold, and strive to be like him in every way (apart from the dodgy women's underwear episode, but we don't like to talk about that). He is your paragon of Neighboursdom. Emulate his wit and his chuckle (chins not necessary) and all round living in the Way of Neighbours. You cannot go wrong when following in his weighty footsteps.

July 06, 2005

If it wasn't for the Olympic woo! thingygummy and the fact that Neighbours was postponed because of it, and so I was forced to look elsewhere for my lunchtime viewing pleasure, I would not have been exposed to one of the most random daytime television moments I have seen in a while: namely, the spectacle of Nigella Lawson teaching a glaze-eyed Charlotte Church how to make lamb burgers. Nigella, in her pink floral dress, was happily flouncing about her kitchen, whilst Charlotte, in black denim and hoop earrings, perched on a stool and tried to look entertained by discovering what hummus was, and made an effort to enthuse about mint.

However, she couldn't quite contain the look of horror that flashed across her face when she realised she would actually have to eat this minty, bulger wheaty lamb pitta, stuffed with salad and oozing with this strange form of food that was hummus. Sensibly, the producers went straight to an advert break as she took her first mouthful, so we were saved the sight of her spitting it out and reaching for some chips to take the taste away. After the break, we were back with the mismatched pair on a tasteful sofa, while Nigella quizzed Charlotte primly about drinking and peer pressure and growing up in the public eye, to which we got some pseudoprim answers, and lots of gentle toothy smiles.

What was the point? What was she doing there? It's like when she appeared on Have I Got News For You… mind you, watching Paul Merton take the piss out of her was pretty funny. Needless to say, there was no such gay bavarderie with Nigella and her kitchen implements.

I suppose the more important question is what on earth is Nigella doing with a studio chat show? A studio chat show, moreover, that can't decide if it's a chat show or a cookery programme, and so condemns its guests to sitting around uselessly for half of it, and then Nigella for the other half. It's not really an exciting concept, is it?

Oh daytime television, what depths will you plumb next in the name of entertainment?